Streetwise

Home in the Range

"New" good news is needed to break this trading range.

MAYBE IT'S A COP-OUT TO OBSERVE THAT the stock market is stuck in a trading range, the equivalent of using the past week's weather to forecast tomorrow's. Yet it's hard to improve upon this conclusion.

Stocks have been shuttling between the recent low near 1040 on the Standard & Poor's 500 and the zone of the April high above 1200. In doing...